The fact that letters written by Primož Trubar and several other Protestants of the province of Carniola can be found among the preserved records of the Carniolan Provincial Estates is a relatively well-known fact. A considerable number of these letters, whose originals and Slovenian translation were first published by Jože Rajhman (The Letters of Primož Trubar in 1986 and The Letters of Slovenian Protestants in 1997) is now kept in the registrature I of the Carniolan Provincial Estates fonds, registrature fascicle 54, which includes 13 archival boxes. The fascicle also contains a number of other documents related to Protestantism or »Evangelical faith« (Evangelische Religion). The two aforementioned Rajhman's books, however, do not include all of the letters kept in the fascicle 54, but only the ones personally written and/or signed by the more prominent Protestants active in the territory of Carniola, while omitting the correspondence of some foreign Protestants one can find upon closer examination of the fonds’ records. Included among the authors of these omitted letters are some of the distinguished German theologians: Nikolaus Gallus (around 1516–1570), Jeremias Homberger (1529–1595), Samuel Heiland (1533–1592) and Jakob Andreae (1528–1590), known to Slovenians as the »earliest biographer« of Primož Trubar.

The piece of writing that stands out among the rest of the unpublished ones is a short letter of small format written by Hartmann Beyer 455 years ago. Written partly in Latin and partly in German and dated April 16, 1568, this letter was sent by Beyer from his native Frankfurt am Main, where he worked as a preacher since 1546, to Primož Trubar in Derendingen. After leaving the territory of the Inner Austrian lands upon the order of the provincial prince, Trubar settled in Derendingen (part of today's Tübingen) and from 1566 on worked there as a Lutheran parish priest. Beyer's letter is a reply to Trubar's request regarding the planned publishing of the Croatian translation of the Sunday sermons delivered by Johannes Brenz between 1535 and 1548. Two people putting in a great deal of effort into the preparation and issuing of the Croatian edition of the so-called Brenz's Postil in Regensburg were Anton Dalmata (Anton Dalmatin) and Štefan Konzul (Stipan Konzul Istranin), both of whom had also been involved with Trubar and the publishing of South Slavic books in Urach. Their cooperation at the Bible Institute in Urach had produced a number of Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian books published by the institute in the Latin, Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts between 1561 and 1565. Despite occasionally disagreeing during their work together in Urach, the relations between Trubar, Dalmata and Konzul never deteriorated to such an extent to deter Trubar from continuing to help his former associates even after they had moved to Regensburg. It was, after all, for the benefit of their common project, i. e. the spreading of the “true faith”.

To make sure that the Croatian translation of Brenz’s Postil as an educational book was a beautifully decorated work, Dalmata and Konzul began their search for the woodcut plates with suitable images. Trubar contacted Beyer, and the latter in turn got in touch with Johannes Wolf (Wolfius), Sigmund Feyerabend and several other printers. His inquiries, however, were unsuccessful. In his reply to Trubar’s letter, Beyer writes that Wolf assured him he would be willing to lend him the requested plates, if he had Croatian letters (die Crabatische Schriften), a compositor and corrector (sampt einem setzer vnd correctore) at his disposal in Frankfurt, and if Wolf himself was the one printing the book (so wolle er es um Lohn drucken und seine Figuren dazu leihen). In the end, the Postil was printed in the Latin script and with only a few decorated initials by the Regensburg printer Johann Burger. Two years prior the same printer also printed Children's Bible (Otrozhia Biblia) by Sebastjan Krelj. As far as woodcut images from Frankfurt are concerned, we should mention here that Jurij Dalmatin also expressed his interest in using them for his Slovenian Bible, as we can read among his 1578 records: «We need to ask how much lending fee we would need to pay for the large and beautiful biblical images in Frankfurt […] or in Wittenberg or anywhere else.« It should be noted that Dalmata and Konzul intended the two-part Croatian Postilla to serve the needs of the Croatians who in fear of the Ottomans took refuge in Burgenland.  

Undoubtedly, one of the more interesting questions in this affair is the question of how Beyer's letter, sent to Trubar in Derendingen, could come to Ljubljana and remained preserved here. As far as we know, the last time Trubar was in Carniola was in June 1567, so less than a year before the letter was written. The answer is probably hidden in the closing lines of Beyer’s letter, where he stresses that Trubar was to learn more than what was written in the letter from “Jurij”: »Reliqua ex Georgio vestrati cognosces.« At this stage of research we do not know who this Jurij was. Beyer characterizes him as »one of yours« in the sense of Jurij being Trubar's fellow countryman or a member of his (extended) family. For now we can only speculate whether this could be Jurij Dalmatin, whom Trubar, when forced to leave Carniola, took with him and his family to Württemberg, where the promising young man attended the University in Tübingen between 1566 and 1572. It could have been Trubar who sent Dalmatin up north, to the approximately 200 km distant Frankfurt. Following Trubar's orders, Dalmatin or someone else might have taken the letter to Ljubljana. In any case, there were several men from Beyer's circle in Frankfurt with whom Trubar might have made contact. This is evidenced, among other things, by the greetings that Beyer conveyed to Trubar. »Salutant te reuerenter D. Hieronymus & collegæ mei.«. Through Beyer, Trubar was sent greetings from Hieronim von Glauburg and some Beyer's friends.

To reveal the extensiveness of the network of the Protestant theologians in the southwest of the Holy Roman Empire, a territory in which prominent Slovenian Protestants were also creating connections of their own, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften) launched a project of publishing their letters and/or essential data about them, about their senders and receivers, as well as about the people mentioned in them. The time frame focused on is the period between 1550 and 1620. In addition to the aforementioned Beyer’s letter, the archival fonds of the Carniolan Provincial Estates includes a number of other interesting letters, which could be a valuable addition to the project. One of the opportunities to learn more about the Protestant correspondence kept in the Carniolan Provincial Estates fonds is the lecture that will be held during the exhibition titled Spomin Slovenije (Slovenska nacionalna lista – UNESCO Spomin sveta), which is to be on display from October 24 to December 3, 2023 at the National Museum of Slovenia. Namely, part of the exhibition about the Slovenian written heritage is going to be dedicated to the letters of Primož Trubar and other prominent Protestants.

Lilijana Žnidaršič Golec